Three tips to get intentional about your start-up’s culture Copy
Emma Tucker, our newest team member and Internal Communications Consultant at The Comms Crowd provides her top three tips for creating a company culture that is the right for you. 
All companies – regardless of how long they have been running – have a culture. Your culture is that certain something that captures the essence of who you are and how you do things. It’s the thing that attracts people to join you and it’s also what keeps them working effectively and loyally.
For start-ups, your culture and vision are probably the two things that you can use to convince those first few hires through the door. So arguably, taking an intentional approach to define and use it is smart and will keep you honest as you grow. Here are three ways to get intentional with your culture.
1. Define it. Get your people in a room and discuss what makes the company what it is or what you want it to be. Write it down. Get specific on the words you choose and don’t be afraid to disagree; it’s in the debate that you’ll uncover areas of tension and uniqueness. Think about the stories that you each tell about your company – what do they say about you?
Be sure to define the values and behaviours that you want to live by. For example, you might choose “Impact” as a value and explain the accompanying behaviours as “You accomplish important work that positively impacts our clients” “You consider the impact of your work on the people around you” and “You leave a good impression because you take action and deliver on your promises.”
Then test it. And better yet, get more people in your company involved in the process. Let them discuss the values and pick behaviours that are relevant and helpful to their work. Get their input and the behaviours will stick.
Then test it with your clients and external stakeholders. Honest feedback will be your friend.
Keep refining the descriptions until they feel right and truly reflect what you’re all about. Aim to define four or five company values. Teams can then decide on the accompanying behaviours relevant to them (aim for three behaviours per value).
2. Embed it. That means weaving it into every interaction with your employees and clients. It should be part of how you hire, develop, and measure your people. It should become integral to the way you innovate and grow your business offering. It should be part and parcel of how you show up to client meetings and deliver results.
It should be reflected in your communications, both in the tone and in the method; instantly recognisable in everything from financial updates, processes and procedures, town halls, team meetings and one-to-one conversations. Ultimately your culture should dictate how you measure your performance and success.
3. Evolve it. Your culture is alive and will continue to evolve whether you maintain it intentionally or not. So, revisit the definitions – a fitting set of values and behaviours in year one might require a different nuance in year five. Check that you haven’t missed an important touchpoint as you’ve grown.
Smart leaders keep their finger on the pulse so go back to your employees and clients and listen again to their stories, observe their behaviour, and act on their feedback.
The speed and scale of your growth will dictate the frequency of these checkpoints, but every six months is a sensible guide.
This is time-consuming work but well worth the effort because getting intentional about your culture, will ultimately drive better business outcomes. McKinsey’s Organisational Health Index shows that organisations with top-quartile cultures post a 60% higher shareholder return than median companies and 200% higher than those in the bottom quartile.
People who want to positively add to your culture will perform better, more easily adapt to change, and help you to attract more talent. They will be your champions.
And putting in the effort to define, embed, and evolve your culture during the early years of your start-up, will save you a lot of time, money, and energy in the long run.
Let’s talk shop
Three tips to get intentional about your start-up’s culture
Emma Tucker, our newest team member and Internal Communications Consultant at The Comms Crowd provides her top three tips for creating a company culture that is the right for you.
All companies – regardless of how long they have been running – have a culture. Your culture is that certain something that captures the essence of who you are and how you do things. It’s the thing that attracts people to join you and it’s also what keeps them working effectively and loyally.
For start-ups, your culture and vision are probably the two things that you can use to convince those first few hires through the door. So arguably, taking an intentional approach to define and use it is smart and will keep you honest as you grow. Here are three ways to get intentional with your culture.
1. Define it. Get your people in a room and discuss what makes the company what it is or what you want it to be. Write it down. Get specific on the words you choose and don’t be afraid to disagree; it’s in the debate that you’ll uncover areas of tension and uniqueness. Think about the stories that you each tell about your company – what do they say about you?
Be sure to define the values and behaviours that you want to live by. For example, you might choose “Impact” as a value and explain the accompanying behaviours as “You accomplish important work that positively impacts our clients” “You consider the impact of your work on the people around you” and “You leave a good impression because you take action and deliver on your promises.”
Then test it. And better yet, get more people in your company involved in the process. Let them discuss the values and pick behaviours that are relevant and helpful to their work. Get their input and the behaviours will stick.
Then test it with your clients and external stakeholders. Honest feedback will be your friend.
Keep refining the descriptions until they feel right and truly reflect what you’re all about. Aim to define four or five company values. Teams can then decide on the accompanying behaviours relevant to them (aim for three behaviours per value).
2. Embed it. That means weaving it into every interaction with your employees and clients. It should be part of how you hire, develop, and measure your people. It should become integral to the way you innovate and grow your business offering. It should be part and parcel of how you show up to client meetings and deliver results.
It should be reflected in your communications, both in the tone and in the method; instantly recognisable in everything from financial updates, processes and procedures, town halls, team meetings and one-to-one conversations. Ultimately your culture should dictate how you measure your performance and success.
3. Evolve it. Your culture is alive and will continue to evolve whether you maintain it intentionally or not. So, revisit the definitions – a fitting set of values and behaviours in year one might require a different nuance in year five. Check that you haven’t missed an important touchpoint as you’ve grown.
Smart leaders keep their finger on the pulse so go back to your employees and clients and listen again to their stories, observe their behaviour, and act on their feedback.
The speed and scale of your growth will dictate the frequency of these checkpoints, but every six months is a sensible guide.
This is time-consuming work but well worth the effort because getting intentional about your culture, will ultimately drive better business outcomes. McKinsey’s Organisational Health Index shows that organisations with top-quartile cultures post a 60% higher shareholder return than median companies and 200% higher than those in the bottom quartile.
People who want to positively add to your culture will perform better, more easily adapt to change, and help you to attract more talent. They will be your champions.
And putting in the effort to define, embed, and evolve your culture during the early years of your start-up, will save you a lot of time, money, and energy in the long run.
Let’s talk shop
Corporate culture: If you’re going to improve it, talk about it
Anthony McNamara, content creator at The Comms Crowd looks at why it is important for companies to talk about their corporate culture and values and why it is should be part of their communications plan.
For any business to perform at optimal levels, designated KPIs must be monitored and assessed regularly. Typically, these KPIs surround functions such as sales, technology infrastructure, PR and marketing, and client relationships.
Critical though such metrics are, they are the supporting walls and lintels of the corporate edifice, and without a solid foundation, they are liable to collapse.
Sitting beneath the processes, goals, and assets of a successful business, that foundation takes its form as the corporate culture. Often neglected in favour of more short-term pursuits, developing a strong, inclusive, and supportive culture is the key to unlocking maximum potential.
However, simply embedding such a culture is not enough if you want to really reap its rewards; you have to talk about it.
In this blog, we look at the benefits of a great corporate culture, how The Comms Crowd clients have developed theirs, and how we helped them spread news of their successes to the masses.
The ‘Great Resignation’ has put corporate culture to the fore
If the development of a robust corporate culture was important before the Covid-19 pandemic, it became critical in the years that followed.
In what became known as the ‘Great Resignation’, employees voluntarily resigned from their jobs in unprecedented numbers and in the UK, between July and September 2021 alone, over 400,000 workers left their jobs.
Among the cited reasons employees gave for leaving were hostile working environments. Indeed, such was the prevalence of the reported phenomenon, that ‘toxic workplaces’ became a trending topic nationwide.
It is clear that the massive disruption of the last few years prompted fresh expectations among the workforce as to what behaviours they will and will not tolerate. A poor or neglected corporate culture may have been grudgingly endured before the 2020s commenced. But times have changed.
Quorsus, a former Comms Crowd client and strategic financial services consultancy founded just before the pandemic started and now owned by Capgemini, led discussions on the dangers of a toxic company culture and how one might be avoided. Quorsus was established with a vow that theirs would be a corporate culture imbued with positivity and reinforced by core values from the start.
Within consultancies – where your people are your product – the importance of embedding such a culture and values cannot be overstated and goes some way to explaining the extraordinary success Quorsus has enjoyed.
With our help, their approach and their message was amplified across their sector and beyond.
A robust corporate culture breeds productivity
Ask any education professional, and they will confirm that praise is essential for a child’s development. The chemical reaction experienced from being told they’ve done a great job provides an immediate boost to a child’s sense of self-worth and encourages them to continue working hard so they might experience it again.
In other words, it has the power to supercharge their productivity.
Yet, something changes when we reach adulthood and enter the world of work. It’s as though we forget those reward centres exist and how powerful they are. Consequently, praise is often replaced by criticism and our inner child – still so easily motivated by encouraging words – begins to suffocate in a miasma of ruthless expectation.
It is short-sighted, to say the least. A national Workplace Culture Survey of US employees found that 63% of respondents claim that workplace culture directly impacts their organisation’s success.
Productivity also depends on the abundance of opportunity. When a former client and friend of The Crowd dxw, a leading employee-owned digital agency that works with the public and third sectors, launched its Returners’ Programme to help build a diverse, inclusive workforce, it broke new ground.
To ensure that dxw’s sector and potential stakeholders knew of its endeavours, the agency brought in The Comms Crowd to tell and disseminate their story. The coverage was such that dxw has become recognised as an expert provider not just of digital public services, but of opportunity to those who may have felt it had passed them by.
Together we made sure that the world knew of its leadership position in creating a positive, inclusive culture. Among various steps, this included becoming one of the first companies to introduce gender pronouns into their signatures.
dxw’s small size notwithstanding, the firm went on to win an array of company culture awards, helping to attract exceptional like-minded talent. An essential for any fast-growing technology enterprise.
Positive cultures promote development
Five years on and ‘The Great Resignation’ jolted many organisations into action because they didn’t want to lose their top talent. Recognising that avoiding high employee turnover requires more than just an amenable working environment, many firms put a renewed focus on facilitating professional development.
Ahead of any recruitment drive, senior leaders invariably begin reviewing factors such as pay scales, perks and benefits, and holidays. However attractive they’re able to make each perk, if the organisation is renowned as a place where careers stagnate, the drive is doomed to failure.
As such, building a positive culture requires embedding opportunity and routes to success at all levels of the business. The best cultures underpin this by making commitments to personal development as much as professional, properly rewarding achievements, and understanding of the importance of a healthy work/life balance.
Former client, JDX Consulting, acquired by Delta Capita, attributed their sustained global success to a carefully developed culture of inclusivity, coaching, and empowerment that allowed the firm to attract diverse, high-quality talent from all walks of life.
By entrusting The Comms Crowd with articulating and sharing their methodologies, JDX quickly became the corporate culture benchmark within their sector before their acquisition by Delta Capita.
We then went further by working with JDX to promote their Festival of Learning, a professional development programme set up by the firm’s HR division. The initiative gives employees the space and tools to grow professionally at their own pace and take control of their own career progress.
Showcase your corporate culture with The Comms Crowd
Our clients love us because we’re adept at getting their messages and successes out into the public domain and the publications their stakeholders engage with.
If you have invested time and money into developing a corporate culture that breeds energy, achievement, opportunity, and happiness, it deserves to be celebrated.
Moreover, potential talent, partners, investors, and clients want to know what you’ve done and are doing. Speak to The Comms Crowd today, and our internal comms consultant, PRs and writers can ensure they soon will.
Let’s talk shop
Content writing – a personal story of love and indignation
Our newest team member and content creator, Anthony McNamara takes a stand on writing for your audience – not the algorithms.
Most professions attract people to them for a range of reasons. Law, for example, will attract those enticed by the potential earnings as much as it will attract those with an overwhelming desire to see justice done. Providing both do their jobs well, the motivation isn’t particularly important.
However, this is where content writing is a different beast.
For the love of words
The primary motivator for pretty much all content writers (and I make this bold claim with absolutely no empirical data to back it up) is the desire to make a living doing what we love – writing.
In this, I am no different. The thrill of concocting a clever metaphor or constructing a killer closing paragraph (with just the right amount of alliteration) is palpable on those occasions I pull either off. More so when I receive an emphatic “good job” from the client.
And yet, as my years penning words for cash pass, I am increasingly motivated not only by an earnest love of writing, but by a sense of indignation. I still see so much content that has demonstrably not been written for the enjoyment and/or enlightenment of the reader and really it grinds my gears, as the kids say.
I should pause here to affirm that I am in no way taking a pot shot at my content writing kinfolk. Most of what I see that so infuriates me has either not been written by a professional content writer or has, but clearly under the duress of either stringent SEO objectives or anxious marketing managers keen for something, anything to be published.
SEO at the price of coherency
Addressing the former, though the faceless Google algorithms to which we are all beholden are allegedly becoming savvy to it, much content is still produced only with them in mind, and not the actual human beings who have to read ‘cheap, reliable laptop’ 17 times in one 400 word blog.
It’s not just SEO though. Plenty of businesses are shrewd enough to know that regular content output is a good thing, but on those occasions they have nothing much to say, force their writers to say it anyway.
For example, I once read a blog about resolving office conflicts. One piece of scholarly advice contained within was, in the event of an argument, to “walk away and count to 10”. Yes, they had re-purposed lesson one from ‘Anger Management for Toddlers’ for grown, professional adults with mortgages and NutriBullets. If I’d been so angered by this banality and the utter waste of precious seconds of my life reading it, how many others had been similarly angered? How many of those were potential customers?
It’s true that writing with the algorithms as your target audience will get you high up on the results pages. It’s equally true that regularly updated content on your website will make you appear committed and active. But if the final destination is a hastily cobbled together, anti-climactic piece, it will reflect poorly on your brand.
Of course, this should not be the sole motivation for wanting to produce great content. Motivation should also come from the fact that word will soon get around if you become a reliable repository of well-crafted insight. With the right strategy backing it up, regular quality content can elevate your brand to the position of influencer, aka Content Marketing Shangri-La.
Finding your content is one thing, enjoying the consumption of it quite another
The point I’m trying to make (and it’s a fair criticism that I’ve gone round the houses making it), is that your written content should always, always be an illuminating read. Even if it has been written with SEO in mind, or because it’s been a fortnight since your last blog, always assume that someone, somewhere will actually take the time to read it from top to bottom.
Speak to that person. Respect their intelligence and make an effort to involve them in the conversation because that’s what’s happening when they’re reading your words. If you have no new knowledge at that moment to share, revisit something old and put a fresh, entertaining spin on it. And if, for whatever reason, you’re unable to do this, pass it over to someone who can.
I’ll end this semi-rant with some advice and that is to remember the following: When a potential customer is reading your content, at that moment you are in dialogue with them. Even if indirectly, you are giving them reasons why your services and yours alone are the ones they need.
The question is, how useful are those reasons, and how well are you getting them across?
